bought 8200 CMT on ebay. HP no longer carries Recovery disks?

[apache-2]

In case it helps troubleshoot, here (below) is a screen shot of the top level directory of the USB Recovery drive, as seen when mounted to a Win XP machine:

[Paul_Tikkanen]

OK, here is what I just did...

I don't have a bootable usb flash drive to test, but...

I disabled EFI boot sources in the BIOS (under boot order) and restarted the PC.

Now I can only select from Legacy options.  Shows Legacy hard drive, USB Hard drive, DVD, and USB Floppy/CD..

EFI Boot sources is collapsed, and you can't expand it.

Then I restarted the PC, went into windows, plugged in my blank USB flash drive.

Of course the PC won't boot from it.

However, upon restarting the PC and tapping the ESC key, and then selecting the F9 boot options menu, I now have the option to boot from the hard drive, USB flash drive or the DVD.

So give that a shot and see if it works for you. 

Just select your bootable flash drive from the menu and hopefully it will take off, since yours is bootable.

[apache-2]

Hi Paul,

After setting the BIOS settings as suggested, not only did it not see the USB thumb drive, but it won't boot at all.  It won't even boot to the BIOS screen! 

When I power cycle the machine, the VGA monitor displays nothing at all, just a black screen.  Eventually it says "monitor going to sleep, no input signal".   I tried power cycling it and tapping ESC, but get zero display on the monitor.  

I've unplugged the USB drive and rebooted with the same results:  screen stays completely black the entire time.

I've checked the monitor cable connections and power cycled the monitor.  No improvement: still get a totally black screen when I power cycle, with not one bit of text or graphics displayed. 

Any suggestions on how to reset the BIOS to factory settings (so that at least it will boot up as before)?  I took a photo of the BIOS change I made (disabling EDI boot sources) before everything went south (see below).

Thanks in advance.

-Ted

[apache-2]

Okay, I managed to find a workaround for the VGA-completely-black problem.  I connected up a different monitor and used the DVI input (not VGA), and now I can see the BIOS again.  Lord only knows why the 8200 decided to no longer send a signal out the VGA port.

So now I've made a (small) bit of progress:  when booting, the USB drive with Recovery media appeared in boot up options as "Toshiba MSFT NORB PMAP", not as "USB drive".
I selected it, and the screen said "Starting Windows" and displayed the windows logo.

It then displayed a blue screen (not BSOD) with a cursor.

And then... hung forever.

The blue screen has a "close" button (square).  When I click it, it says "Do you want to exit Recovery Manager and reboot"?  If I select yes, it reboots and I'm back to where I started (can hit ESC and select USB drive to boot from).

There is no iconify button for that blue screen, and no way to do anything else (no menu items or buttons to click).

Any suggestion on how to get past this wierd blue screen?   It appears that for some reason booting from the USB Recovery drive launches recovery mode, rather than "reinstall the OS" mode 😞

Thanks in advance.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

That is totally strange that when you disabled the EFI boot, everything went black.

Needless to say, none of that happened to me, but my monitor was already connected to a DVI port since I have an add on video card.

If you ever end up in a situation like that again and you need to reset the BIOS to its defaults, shut down and unplug the PC.  Disconnect everything hooked up to it...keyboard, mouse, video cable...everything.

Open up the case and near the CMOS battery is a tiny yellow button which resets the CMOS.

Press and hold that button for about 20-30 seconds.

Then reassemble the PC.

As far as the recovery drive issue...I have no idea what you need to do about that.

I figured you would get the usual loading windows files and onward.

I would call HP and see if they can walk you through the process.

Too bad HP couldn't have sent you a set of recovery DVD's!

You could get a set of W7 x64 recovery disks from the computer surgeons lised under the SFF model...

It doesn't say which version (Home or Pro) but most of our PC's came with Pro.

http://www.computersurgeons.com/p-30067-recovery-kit-xl689av-for-hp-model-number-8200-elite-small-fo...

I doubt there is any difference between the ones for the SFF or CMT.

I have a 4 disk set.  All it says on the label is:   System Recovery, 6200 Pro, 8200 Elite.

HP Media 631431-B22  This disk contains 64 bit software disk 1, disk 2, disk 3 and disk 4.

[apache-2]

Hi Pauil,

Thanks for the tiny yellow button tip for resetting the CMOS!

I called 1-800-334-5144 (the # from which I ordered the Recovery Media) and they told me that "this will be a long call and we'll have to charge you.  But you can get a year of free support by calling 800-407-6210 and reregistering this PC.  Then call us back."  He claimed that even though the base warranty on this machine is over, because it was still reasonably new, HP has a policy of giving the new owner a year of free support.

Unfortunately the person at the # he gave me (800-407-6210) said he could only register CarePacks, which require an HP order # (which I don't have, only the original purchaser has it, which he apparently received via email).

Argh.

I then tried to convert the Recovery USB to a Recovery DVD, via https://timothy-quinn.com/how-to-convert-a-bootable-usb-to-an-iso-file/      That "worked", but not really.  It did create a .iso image, but it was 13.5 GB, which is too large to burn onto a DVD.

Thanks also for the details about the Computer Surgeon recovery DVD's.   Before I order them I have one question:  have you ever tried them?  I'm afraid that if I order them, it might result in the same thing:  automatically launch "Recovery Manager", which hangs with  a blank blue screen...

---- here's a  separate question; if you'd like me to ask this is a separate thread, just let me know ----

I'm glad you mentioned that you have an add on video card!  My 8200 also has an add on video card (Nvidia MSI GeForce GT 720).   I've been quite disappointed with the picture quality (when viewing .jpg photographs ), and was wondering how to improve it.   I've tried quite a few different monitors (HP EliteDisplay E27i,  LP2475w, and LA2405wg) and the colors on all of them seem washed out.   For ascii, spreadsheets, etc, the visual quality and color looks fine.  But for .jpgs, it really looks mediocre. 

I then realized all of my monitors are essentially the same quality, so I ordered a monitor which is supposedly quite good at high fidelity color rendering:

(https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NZTKOQI/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1   , a Dell Ultrasharp U2415)

Unfortunately the colors on the Dell U2415 display just as poorly as the other monitors.  Not all monitors have a full suite of connectors, but I've tried VGA, HDMI, DisplayPort, and DVI and they all look pretty much the same - not very good.  Text is fine, but photographs of human faces (for example) are really deficient in color richness.     My old CRT TV has much better color quality.

===> Would you expect the add on video card to provide better color fidelity, or should I just stick with the onboard graphics card?  (The person who sold me this machine on eBay was a gamer - I think he got the graphics card to for faster rendering of fast action, not to improve color fidelity).

Thanks again,

-Ted

[apache-2]

FYI, just for the sake of completeness, I made one last attempt at getting the USB Recovery media to work.

I returned the machine hw to a totally original state:

- removed the Nvidia card

- disconnected all cables (keyboard, mouse, video, LAN, and power cord)

- pressed and held yellow CMOS button for 30 secs

I then left the add on video card out, cabled up a simple HP 1740 monitor to the VGA connector which is connected to the 8200 motherboard, and rebooted. 

It came up with a BIOS screen which said "Press F1 to boot",so I did.  It then tried to boot an OS over the network (the internal disk is brand new, blank, no OS), so I turned it off.  

I then inserted the Recovery USB drive and rebooted.   Tapped ESC until it gave me the BIOS menu, at which point I hit F9 (Boot Options), and then selected "Hard Drive: TOSHIBA MSFT NORM PMAP" (apparently this is the model of the thumb drive). 

Unfortunately it then entered the exact same failure scenario as before:  it said "Starting Windows", then it displayed a solid blue screen with a cursor, and just sat there.  No menu items, no buttons.  Only action possible is to click the X close button on the window (upper RHS), at which point it says "Do you want to exit Recovery Manager and reboot?"

[Paul_Tikkanen]

I have the nVidia GT 730 in mine and it works fine. 

I have an AMD Radeon HD 6570 in the other one connected to an ancient Dell 20" LCD monitor and it works fine too.

I also have the la2405wg monitor and it works fine.  I don't see any color degradation or anomalies on either PC.

I am running W10 Pro on both of my 8200 Elite's currently, and yes, I did use the W7 recovery disks once.

They don't mention anything about a recovery manager program.

You boot from Disk 1, you get the warning that it is going to erase all data, repartition and format the hard drive, etc. 

When you click proceed, it loads some files, then it ejects and asks for Disk 2 which loads some more files, and so on.

After you remove Disk 4, you are asked to restart the PC and in about 30 minutes give or take, you have the factory image of W7 in there.

I did not have an add on card at the time, so they worked fine.

You were correct in removing any add on hardware before using the recovery media.

Also you should not have anything connected to the PC when doing a system recovery other than the KB, mouse and monitor.

Could it be a defective USB recovery drive that you have? 

I just don't get why the drive isn't loading the system image.

But why not just use that W7 Pro ISO file you made with the product key on the PC's case?

Then you don't get all the extraneous HP software that comes with the image, and all the security software, etc, that I just had to uninstall anyway.

[apache-2]

Hi Paul,

I typed up a very detailed reply, but the Forum somehow lost it.  Argh.

Long story short:  I ended up ordering the Recovery media from Computer Surgeons (using URL you posted earlier).  It arrived on DVD and worked!   So I'm all set now.

Thanks for all your help, much appreciated!

I thought there as a way to mark threads "solved", but can't find it.  Oh well.

-Ted

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi, Ted:

That is great news.

You already marked the discussion as solved on one of my replies, on the first page.

You can only put a solved mark on one reply per discussion.

Happy New Year, and enjoy your 8200 Elite CMT!

Paul